I started writing a completely different blog post for this week, but when I read the news this morning, I knew I had to shift gears. 

CNN featured a story yesterday called "​Teachers and social workers search for students who are 'missing' in the pandemic."

The word "missing" made my heart drop. 

It immediately reminded me of this story, of a young girl from Washington, DC named Relisha Rudd. I heard about her story in 2014, and it broke my heart -- at the time, I was a community school coordinator and led our school's charge for attendance and engagement tracking and interventions. Staff from Relisha's school tried to track her down, only to find that a man working at the homeless shelter where she was staying had been impersonating her doctor to the school.

She is still missing to this day. 

As a community school coordinator, her story lit a fire under me to do everything I could to make sure that we knew, to the best of our ability, that our kids were safe and able to come to school. 

I have thought of Relisha over the years and find the tragedy of her story to be a call to action for schools, districts, and other youth- and family-serving organizations. 

How can we make sure that no other students fall through the cracks?

When I read the story this morning about the Robla School District in California doing home visits and trying everything they can to find their students "missing" from online school, I had so many thoughts:

Labeling students as "missing" drives home the gravity of the situation our country is in. Families are truly struggling because of the virus and the economy, but honestly, lacking access to the internet, to stable housing, and to consistent work have been challenges for so many families for so long. The fact that things are only getting worse is upsetting and shows us that we have so much work to do. 

Literally going into neighborhoods searching for children is heroic, but also emotionally grueling. I remember the disappointment and worry of having a string of unsuccessful home visits -- you gear yourself up for making a difference, only to find that addresses were incorrect or have changed, or worse -- you just don't know where students and families are living. That is scary, and it is emotionally taxing for educators. 

While data tracking can't help us physically locate a family, it can help us focus our efforts where they are needed most. You may have seen that last week, I released a guide for how to Track Your Engagement Data in 4 Simple Steps. I believe strongly that using simple functions in Excel can help educators pinpoint exactly which students and families need additional support -- whether that's with attendance, engagement, or academics. 

(I know it can work because I've seen the impact it has had on my own work in schools!)

So in honor of Relisha and in commitment to the well-being and success of students who may be "missing" from online school today, let's get tracking. 

To learn more about data tracking, visit my Engage with Excel page or sign up below. 

I've written a lot lately (here and here) about WHY tracking your school or organization's data is so critical right now.

As schools begin to reopen, I've heard from educators of so many different configurations for what school is going to look like: some totally virtual, some in person, some in a hybrid model... 

That's a lot to keep track of!

It's hard enough to make sure that no child falls through the cracks when school is operating as usual -- now that task seems herculean. 

So how can we be sure that we know where each student stands, even if we don't see them every day?

How can we know that we're doing our best to meet their needs (and that we even know what those needs are)? 

That, my friends, is where some simple data tracking strategies come in. 

Here is one trick to help you assess, at a glance, which students or families need a little more support: conditional formatting in Excel. 

Conditional formatting allows you to set criteria to automatically color-code or highlight values that you need to take action on.

You'll see that my (totally fictitious) dataset below is just a typical spreadsheet -- nothing stands out at a glance, and it's hard to see which of these students really needs the most attention. 

We can use conditional formatting to visually highlight some of the students who need some support. We can find it by clicking selecting the text we want to format, and then clicking on the circled icon below.

Once you click on the icon, you'll see a drop-down menu pop up with all of the options you have for automatically color-coding your data. I think the easiest way to start is by selecting "New Rule."

In the menu that pops up to manage your rules, you'll set the criteria that will determine what gets color-coded and how you want to code it. 

​This is where things get fun. 

The simplest option is "Classic." I always choose "Format cells that contain" and set either a text or numerical value that I want to highlight. Below is how I highlighted the students whose Quarter 3 grades were below a 70. 

And voila! Now you can see, at a glance, the students who were struggling in Quarter 3. No fancy statistical skills needed!

I could also create other rules for my high-performing students or those ones that fell in the middle of the class.

There are TONS of other ways to conditionally format your data -- here are two other examples for the same data that address the whole range of grades.

On the left, you'll see that instead of the Classic mode, I used an Icon Set to do a little traffic light system for the student grades. On the right, I used Data Bars to help me see students' grades on a scale from the lowest to highest score.

With these formatting options, I can see the students that might need some extra support... and it only took a few clicks and a decision about the point at which I'd be concerned about a student. 

This is just one strategy of many that can help you quickly and easily to make sure no students are falling through the cracks. 

Want to learn more? 

• Schedule an Excel workshop (or three!) for your organization - check out the descriptions from my three-part series here. 
• Sign up here for the free Evidence for Engagement mini-course! It will walk you through how to become an evidence-based organization. 
• Pencil this into your calendar: Evidence for Engagement is going live! On September 16 at 3:00 EST, Tamara Hamai and I will be leading a workshop on how to use data to ensure that you're still making an impact, even if your services have gone virtual. More information coming soon!

None of these work for you? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation with me so we can figure out how to best get your data tracking system started!
​

I love a good spreadsheet. I mean, I really get excited about it. You may have read on the About page how my business evolved from the development of a really fancy spreadsheet. True story. Now I get to help others learn to use Excel to improve their work and watch them get excited about it too.

One positive thing to come out of the pandemic is an increased appetite for online professional development. Recently, I've gotten to connect with old friends and colleagues by providing a three-part Excel workshop series for the Family League of Baltimore. So on top of hanging out with my old network, I've gotten to teach them about all the fun stuff Excel can do. Win-win!

Here's an overview of the series:

Part 1: Excel Basics
A lot of educators just haven't been trained in how to use data. They may be consumers of it, using someone else's spreadsheet to glean information, but often, they just don't know how to utilize Excel's features for themselves. The Excel Basics workshop starts from the top and discusses formatting, functions, and formulas that beginners can use to build their Excel capacity. 

Part 2: Creating and Using Templates in Excel
In the engagement world, there is so much to track! This session built on what was covered in the Basics session and walked participants through the process of designing their own customized tracking sheets. We used breakout rooms to discuss how to track different topics, and we walked through some more advanced features and functions to make these tools as automated as possible.

Part 3: Reporting and Visualizing Data in Excel
Data visualization is a hot topic in evaluation right now, and I get why. When you're able to effectively show your data graphically, you can make your results accessible for a much wider audience. In this session, we talked about so many fun parts of Excel - PivotTables, creating charts and tables for reporting, and ... drumroll, please ... creating interactive dashboards! Did you know you can create dashboards like the one below to share with your team? 

Here's what some of my past workshop participants had to say about their experience: 

• "Practical examples applicable to daily work. Presented at the right pace. Great content."

• "My approach will be to allow my understanding of the various features to help me work smarter not harder. I am encouraged to continue to use excel, not run away from it."

• "I feel more aware of how to efficiently organize my data! This will be helpful for reporting, and analyzing data for my own outreach strategies."

• "I really enjoyed this session. They did a great job reaching participants of many levels."

​
Besides my obvious bias towards using Excel for ... well, everything ... I think it is even more important now for schools and districts to be effectively tracking their work. As we navigate through so many unknowns with school reopening, it will be critical to keep an eye on students who are at risk of falling through the cracks.

​Good news - Excel can help (and so can I!). 

I'd love to bring this workshop series to more places, so if your team could use a bit of an Excel boost, let's talk!